[Twig6]

Originally Posted by cbacba

Note your example as a factor of 10x error. A $100 / mo, 0.12 / kw means about 800 kwh not 8000 (or 10,000kwh / mo) that's the yearly usage.

Typo. I wrote /month when I meant /year. The calculated numbers are still correct.

Originally Posted by cbacba

Cost increases of energy not part of inflation is yet another unknown that may or may not actually happen. Depending upon inflation to provide return on investment generally means there isn't much of any real return.

Inflation and energy price increases are just a bonus in the example I gave. They aren't guaranteed, but they are very likely as the Fed Reserve prints money like it's not a guarantee of inflation, and the aforementioned peaks in all current energy reserves.

The link I posted gave several calculated scenarios for borrowing the money for the system, and retaining a return on investment over and above the interest payment. My example didn't take into account as many factors, and was assuming that the system would be paid for without borrowed funds. In other words, a rough calculation. Their calculations are more detailed and factor things in like increased value of the home, etc.

Originally Posted by cbacba

I can't agree with you on the private sector being subsidized. The relationship between the private sector and the gov. is more like a an emaciated goat trying to remain standing while being crushed by a giant leach sucking its blood.

Th real picture is exactly opposite the one you paint—government funds (or rather public funds) are the goat, and big business is the leech.

Big business contributes—at most—about 20% of U.S. jobs (while small biz employ 50%), contribute to a smaller percentage of GDP than either small biz or consumers. Despite all this, they receive a huge percentage of public funds, public bailouts, tax breaks, etc. In other words, they represent a drain on the economy.

Fossil fuels represent only a tiny percentage of GDP, and yet the gov't spends billions of dollars securing them for the sole benefit of big business, the whole enterprise being a net loss for the general economy. (Not to mention all the other staggering non-monetary costs).

Originally Posted by cbacba

Much of the problems I've seen have been failures of business to deal effectively with unions, allowing themselves to be walked all over and promising significantly beyond what can be delivered.

This is completely without factual merit. Unions hold almost no power anymore in the United States, although they continue to be inexplicably blamed for things that realistically have nothing to do with them (much like illegal immigrants, minorities, and other "scapegoats" who have achieved popularity from time to time.)

Originally Posted by cbacba

The only cure for that is to prevent the political hacks from having sufficient power and control over wealth. Most jobs now are small business related not large business. Of course the small businesses don't have political clout of big ones.

I would actually agree with this part.

Originally Posted by cbacba

Biggest problem in oil is foreign demand - like china. It doesn't help to have gov. restricting domestic drilling in a big way either.

I don't really understand how foreign oil demand is a "problem", unless you think that no one else should be allowed to have oil except us?

If you're talking about the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve, you're talking about an estimated mean of 7.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The current annual U.S. demand is 6.6 billion barrels a year. U.S. oil reserves went into decline 30 years ago, and what is left is literally talking about grasping at straws.

Originally Posted by cbacba

If you're referring to driving a french fry mobile usuing deep fry oil, that's cheap but not available in qty. I understnd the new zealanders have some prototype commercial sewage to biodiesel test going on. So far, BioWillie's truck stop (willie nelson is the spokesman?) hasn't made it within 100 miles of here and the last one I saw was noticeably more expensive than petroleum diesel prices in the vacinity.

I'm not sure if bio-willie is more unsustainable subsidized food burning like corn ethanol or if it's something real with a big future.

There are myriad ways of growing and producing biodiesel, several of them independent of food crops. They are allcheaper to produce, if all costs are considered, than oil production.

I applaud people who you denigrate as driving french fry mobiles—they're much smarter economically and environmentally than those that drive petroleum-powered vehicles, and they've taken the means of production back from oil monopolies.

The most unsustainable—and largest—federal subsidies go not towards ethanol, but rather oil monopolies—literally throwing money and lives away on a dwindling, polluting resource.

Oil is only valuable as long as there are consumers willing to buy it. A technologies in other alternative fuels improve and become cheaper, consumers will likely turn towards them instead. Too bad for the oil companies and their investors.